The present invention relates to suspended ceiling systems or wall systems and, in particular, to a decorative system wherein a molding system is coupled to a suspended grid TEE system and which, in turn, supports a decorative plaque or panel system.
Lay-in ceiling systems have been known for many years and can be found in many types and styles. The most common of these employ a suspended grid TEE system that supports lay-in panels that are placed between the grid TEE members or tongue and grooved panels that interlock with one another and the grid TEE system, via the grooved edges of the panels.
The panels for such systems are typically fabricated from a fire rated substrate material that may or may not have acoustic deadening properties and upon one of which exposed surfaces a design is formed, either by molding the design from the substrate material or by attaching a thin laminant containing the design to the substrate material. The panels for such systems may also have their edges rabbit cut so that the decorative surfaces lie slightly below for grid TEE system, thereby causing the grid TEE system to appear recessed with respect to the lay in panels, reference U.S. Pat. No. 3,153,304.
Systems of the above type, while offering a great deal of versatility, when accomodating lighting and other mechanical apparatus that are suspended above the ceiling, suffer from the limited numbers of appearances that can be created thereby. While natural wood/molded plaque systems have been used for creating a richer appearance and adding texture to a room, such systems have proven to be relatively expensive in that they are labor intensive with respect to the mounting thereof.
In such natural wood/molded plaque systems, the lay-in panels or plaques are most typically fabricated from a substrate material to which a thin layer of a natural wood veneer is attached and which veneer may also have a molded wood design glued thereto. Such natural wood plaques or panels are then suspended above and within a grid of wood moldings that are attached to the grid TEE system so as to form a continuous molding/plague ceiling or wall system having a rich natural wood appearance. Such systems, however, suffer from difficulties in attaching the molding to the grid TEE systems, in that, to date, attachment has been achieved only via individually screwing or stapling the molding to the main TEE's and cross TEE's of the grid system. Such a method of attachment is extremely labor intensive, and thus increases the cost of such a ceiling or wall system.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to enable the assembly of decorative ceiling and wall systems in a minimum amount of time without the expenditure of a great deal of labor.
It is a further object to accomodate a suspended ceiling system that is compatible with the presently known and most common suspended grid TEE ceiling systems.
It is a still further object to produce a ceiling or wall system wherein the decorative molding is attached to the supporting grid system via clip means that are formed so as to be adaptively comparable with the molding and create a secure mechanical bond upon coupling the clip to the molding.
It is also an object to create a clip means from a relatively inexpensive resilient material containing memory properties so as to enable a spring type clip action to the grid system.
It is a further object to employ a clip leg having extruded wands angling therefrom for making a secure mechanical attachment to the molding, upon inserting the clip leg into a recess adaptively formed in the molding.
It is still another object of the present invention to consider alternative clip means employing various combinations of spring and dovetail coupling actions with respect to the grid and molding systems.
These objects and still others will become more apparent upon a reading of the following detailed description and upon reference to the following figures. It is also to be recognized, that the following description and drawings disclose concepts which may be broadly applied to numerous others types of other decorative ceiling and wall systems.